AND JUST TO ADD TO THE MESS…….

The following story comes from this week’s KOSHER TODAY and concerns the on going story of the kosher plant at Postville.

So where does the truth lie? Better still- why is the hashgacha agency charged with supervising the plant so silent? Where is their rigorous defense?

Rabbi’s Independent Visit at Agri Finds No Mistreatment of Workers
(Postville, Iowa) A rabbi and a Spanish speaking congregant on a fact finding mission to the AgriProcessors plant here found no mistreatment of workers, as was alleged in a front page article in the Forward, a Jewish weekly published in New York. Rabbi Asher Zeilingold and Dr. Carlos Carbonera of St. Paul, Minnesota reviewed the conditions that the Forward called a “Kosher Jungle” and found gross mistruths in the Forward’s reporting. The newspaper interviewed 20 workers that were said to be underpaid, abused on the job and living in cramped and squalid living quarters. A source close to Agri said that he “would not be surprised if PETA and the unions (the workers voted not to be unionized) were behind the latest smear campaign against Agri.” The rabbi noted that the paper had misrepresented the wages that were paid, charged that bribes were paid for better shifts, and suggested that employees did not receive proper medical attention.